ALT147

Yes! That's exactly what I was after. Thank you so much for you help, Søren!

OK, thanks for that diagram... I've copied it into my file, but it's still not giving me the results I want. Now it seems to be showing the same record several times over in the portal (see attached). What am I missing? If you did manage to alter the file to make it work, maybe it'd be easier if you uploaded it? Thanks. Job_Accounting.zip

Sorry, but I am really lost now. I've attached an updated version of the file. In "Form View - People", under the "Weekly Hours" tab, you'll see what I am trying to do. I want the portal to display all records from the given week, plus the total at the bottom. Would you be able to explain (for a novice) step-by-step what to do? Or, if it is not too much to ask, perhaps demonstrate? Thanks in advance Job_Accounting.zip

I'm sorry, how does that help? I don't really want to enter any more criteria, I just want it to display only records that match the date I entered. I suspect the problem has to do with it being a portal, but I'm not really sure.

Ah yes. Thank you very much, guys. It's working now. One last, and unrelated, question: in 'Form View - Projects', if I want to list in the portal all the people who worked on the current job on a certain day, how do I do that? If (in Find mode), I type in the name of the job in the 'Name' field and the date into the 'Date Worked' column of the portal, it lists all records, not just the ones with that date.

Thanks for trying it, Brian. I don't know why it's not working for you. sd - your point about payrises is a good one: I didn't think of that. I guess I would want payrises to only take effect on future jobs, not to affect past ones. Can this be achieved using lookup values? How do I make this happen? I'm pretty new to FileMaker. Thanks for your help.

I've got a simple calculation totalling values from a portal, but it won't update when one of those values is changed from a different layout. I tried making it a summary, but its totalling values from a different table, so I can't do it. See attached. For example, using "Form View - People", try changing Alice's pay rate to 95. Then, in "Form View - Projects", the Total Project Pay for Alpha (at the bottom) will not have updated. Is there any way to fix this? Any help is greatly appreciated. Job_Accounting.zip

Hi aaa. Adding a new person to a project doesn't create a record for that person, and I can still make two people with the same name. Is it not possible to change these things?

Hi aaa. Thanks for taking the time to edit my file. I'm hoping I'm not being too annoying, but it's still not quite what I had intended. I want it such that when you enter a person's name under a project in the "Projects" tab, a record is created for them in the "People" tab; *if* one doesn't already exist. I also want it to be impossible for there to be two people with the same name (for obvious reasons). In practice, if you add Person A to Project A, then a record should be created in the "People" tab. Then, if you also add Person A to Project B, this project should appear on the same record in the "People" tab. Is this possible? Oh, by the way, don't worry about the equipment column. I'll worry about that later on. It's not really very important anyway. Thanks.

Thanks for that file, aaa. I think I'm starting to get the idea. I tried imitating your relationships diagram, and it works now... almost. The only problem is that if I enter the same person name under two different projects, there will be two people with the same name in the "People" tab. I'm guessing this is because I linked the ID numbers of projects and people to the join table, each of which is unique. I've attached the file... you'll see that there are two instances of Persons A, B and C in the "People" tab. I want all the projects that Person A is working on to appear on the one page. Is that possible? I really appreciate your help with this. Thanks again. projects.zip

Hi aaa. Thanks for your reply. A quick Google tells me that a many-to-many relationship is: "A relationship between two tables in which one record in either table can have many matching records in the other table." That's exactly what I want! Thank you! The only trouble is I still can't work out how to achieve this. Would you be able to tell me exactly what to do: ie, exactly which table fields to link to which others? Or point me to a simple example database which has such a relationship in it? Although I can find a definition, Google seems to have very little on how to actually implement a many-to-many relationship. Thanks again.

Hello. I've kind of been thrown into the deep end in terms of database software. Having no idea even about what a relational database is, I've been asked by a friend to come up with a job/personnel tracking database for their small business. I downloaded the trial version of FileMaker Pro 8, so I now have approximately 26 days to try come up with something that will convince them it is possible. I began by fiddling with the "Task Management" template that came with FM 8, as it seemed closest to what I wanted to achieve. But now I'm stuck, and I think it's because I don't really understand the idea of relationships. Basically, what we want is this: someone will create a "job card" for each project undertaken, with information about who, what, when, how much, etc. In the "Projects" tab, we want to view information about each project, and about who worked on it. Then, in the "People" tab, we want to be able to view information about each person, and about all the work they've done on any project. This is the part I'm having trouble with (see attached). I can get the "Projects" tab working basically how I want it to, but I can't get a list of *all* the projects person X has worked on in the "People" tab. There are other little things I'd like to be able to do, including: i) Have a "Pay Rate" field in the "People" tab defining that person's pay rate for used in the "Pay" calculation displayed in the "Projects" tab ii) Have the ability to display projects that a given person has worked on only during a specified time period (plus total pay earned during that period, etc.) But getting all projects to display in the "People" tab would be a good start. I have a feeling that my relationships diagram is totally off the mark... Any help is greatly appreciated, and I'd be very grateful if things were explained in simple terms: as I said I have no database experience other than that I've garnered in the last few days from reading help files. Thanks. projects.fp7.zip